Mexico Mission 2023

A fellow named Jesús was baptised and confirmed a member of our church on Saturday afternoon in Palmas Ward, one of the two wards (congregations) we are associated with here. It was a bitter sweet experience for him, sweet with the respect to the happiness he has found within himself in striving to become like Jesus Christ and to prepare himself to claim the blessings of and eternal family. He is a soldier in Mexico's army and described himself as hardened and hard-hearted prior to learning about the Doctrine of Christ and prior to his baptism. Without the rule of law, the army is not a place where kindness and love are nurtured and flourish. His wife and their two daughters joined the church prior to him. Bitter, in that he expects his father to disown him and his family for taking this step of faith.  I shared my experience with him of joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints over 35 years ago. I was almost 28 years old when I shared my decision with my parents and...

Kind of a dark week this time. On our way back from grocery shopping in a cab on Saturday I snapped the photo below after asking the driver if he thought it would be o.k. My interest was the truck load of soldiers with assault rifles with one of them scrolling on his phone, the others had their fingers on the triggers of their guns. We live close to a Mexican army base so soldiers are a common sight but similarly armed security guards, also usually with their fingers on the triggers of their weapons are a common sight. "12 dead after armed attack in Guanajuato", was one of the headlines in the news Sunday morning. The article references another attack in the same city the night before that left 4 dead. The news says there is a mass murder (3 or more people) in Mexico every 19 hours. Rarely is anyone charged for these crimes, let alone aprehended. Unfortunately, the rule of law here is not a given. Yes, it's pretty here but if you look just a bit closer, the terror is pret...

On Monday the mission office Elders accompanied us to the Mexican Migration Institute to get an appointment to apply for temporary resident status to allow us to stay for another 11 months. At that point we had only five days left on our visa before we were at risk of being deported. After an hour and a half of waiting in line we got an appointment for the next day at 9:30am. The office elders also gave us an overview of the process to expect including what could possibly go wrong and how to handle it.  Things went more or less the way the office Elder described except that we didn't have any of the problems they said might arise. We met a woman from the US who had been there five times and like us, she only had a few days left to complete the process or be deported. Each time she returned there was something new wrong with her paperwork. She was in tears as she waited at the counter while they reviewed her application for the sixth time. Thankfully she made it through this time an...

This week we participated in protocolario events that marked the completion of two more humanitarian aid projects here in Mexico. APAC is a non-profit organization in Mexico City that works with a network of medical and health professionals to assess, diagnose and help children with cerebral palsy. They offer officially recognized school classes allowing the beneficiaries to complete elementary and high school as well as qualify for and complete degree programs virtually with partner universities. The health officials offer their time and expertise on a volunteer basis. Our donation was an exoskeleton made for children. We helped purchase a third Atlas 2030, the first of its kind for children as previously they only existed for adults. The exoskeleton is a robotic therapeutic device that with the assistance of a therapist, allows a child to stand upright and to move their growing body which helps to rehabilitate muscles and muscle endurance for better mobility and to also improve their...